In a joint letter mailed recently to all members of the Indiana General Assembly, the Washington, D.C., and Chicago offices of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) wrote in part:

“As the General Assembly reconvenes for the coming year, we would like to reach out to you regarding a bill that Representative Bruce Borders has indicated he intends to introduce in the House of Representatives. Representative Borders’s bill is un-American to its core. The bill will divide Indiana residents rather than unite them. It will communicate to the nation and the world that Indiana unconstitutionally deprives religious minorities of the freedom to practice their faith. We are seeking your commitment not to allow Representative Borders’s bill to be considered by the House.

“Representative Borders plans on introducing a bill proclaiming that ‘Indiana does not recognize Sharia law.’ He believes this action is justified because ‘there is a push in some states to recognize Sharia law with its own court system.’ However, Mr. Borders is wrong to think that Muslims are seeking to impose ‘Sharia Law’ over and above state and federal law.

Note the Islamist nuance of “over and above state and federal law.” Not yet, but they do want sharia law, which is all the more reason to ban it.

CAIR has become a master at writing pseudo public relations pieces for themselves, linking to biased, one-sided, factually-challenged stories they post in local newspapers.

A senior Council on American-Islamic Relations official appointed by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg bleached his CAIR experience from his resume, but his controversial past led to his dismissal as a panelist in next week’s New York debate on airport profiling broadcast by Bloomberg Television, WND has learned.

Omar T. Mohammedi, a commissioner with the New York City Commission on Human Rights was dumped from the debate featuring former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff after panelists raised concerns about his work for CAIR, which the federal government has named an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terror-financing case in U.S. history.

Mohammedi also served as the lead attorney in a discrimination lawsuit CAIR financed against US Airways on behalf of the so-called Flying Imams. CAIR’s national office in Washington put Mohammedi in touch with the imams. Internal memos show Mohammedi participated in conference calls regarding the case with CAIR’s national director, Nihad Awad.

In a memo to CAIR executives, Mohammedi proposed launching a campaign to “discredit people” critical of the imams, such as Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y. “We should discuss the possibility of having a major campaign against Peter King,” he wrote.

The FBI has severed ties with CAIR until it can demonstrate it is not a terror front.

…

Debra Burlingame, sister of the pilot killed in the hijacked 9/11 flight that hit the Pentagon, says it’s possible that Bloomberg was not aware of Mohammedi’s background when he named him to the commission.

She also noted that the 1997 White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security, convened by President Clinton and presided over by Vice President Al Gore in the wake of the TWA Flight 800 explosion, appointed CAIR executive director Awad as an adviser on passenger screening.

Mohammedi was the lead attorney who argued the discrimination case against US Airways, the FBI and airport police on behalf of the six imams who claimed their rights were violated when they were kicked off a US Airways flight as a potential security threat. Passengers and crew said the imams behaved suspiciously, and the pilot called police to escort them off the plane. A Clinton-appointed federal judge forced a settlement in the case that allegedly favored the imams.

“It was clear that the entire incident was staged in order to bring the suit,” Burlingame said, “and CAIR was involved from minute one.”

According to a federal court ruling unsealed Friday, the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations has been involved in “a conspiracy to support Hamas,” a federally designated terrorist group that has murdered at least 17 Americans and injured more than 100 U.S. citizens.

The 20-page order, signed by U.S. District Judge Jorge A. Solis, cites “ample evidence” that CAIR participated in a “criminal conspiracy” led by the Holy Land Foundation, Hamas’s main fundraising arm in the U.S. As a result, the judge refused CAIR’s request to strike its name from documents listing it as an unindicted co-conspirator in the case.

“The four pieces of evidence the government relies on do create at least a prima facie case as to CAIR’s involvement in a conspiracy to support Hamas,” Solis wrote in his July 2009 ruling.

The evidence includes documents introduced by the government showing CAIR and its founding chairman Omar Ahmad have operated as key members of Hamas’ U.S. wing, known as the “Palestine Committee.” In addition, FBI wiretaps and agent testimony have placed both Ahmad and CAIR’s acting executive director – Nihad Awad – at a secret meeting last decade with Hamas leaders in Philadelphia. Meeting in a hotel room, participants hatched a scheme to disguise payments to Hamas suicide bombers and their families as charity.

CAIR founding chairman Omar Ahmad, who arranged and led the secret Hamas meeting in Philadelphia

“The attendees agreed not to mention the word Hamas but to refer to Hamas as ‘Samah,’ which is Hamas spelled backwards,” Solis said. “The Philadelphia conference essentially laid out the path that the Palestine Committee would take to accomplish its goal of supporting Hamas in the future.”

During the meeting – which was organized and led by CAIR founder Ahmad – the Hamas operatives agreed to form CAIR as an outwardly benign front group skilled in media manipulation. “They did not want to be viewed as being aligned with terrorist groups,” he said.

The judge did not dispute “press accounts and blog entries” that “CAIR is a criminal organization that supports terrorism,” according to the ruling.

The government’s evidence undermines CAIR’s public face as a “civil-rights advocacy organization,” while corroborating the findings of the bestselling book, “Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That’s Conspiring to Islamize America.” The book chronicles the undercover investigation of P. David Gaubatz and his son, who interned at CAIR’s national headquarters.

CAIR has sued the Gaubatzes for trespassing, but has not denied any of the book’s explosive findings tying CAIR closer to terrorism.

According to Politico.com, a federal grand jury in Washington is actively hearing evidence against CAIR emerging from the Holy Land trial, while also reviewing the thousands of pages of evidence gathered in the “Muslim Mafia” investigation. Prosecutors subpoenaed the evidence shortly after the book was published last fall.

CAIR, which has not been charged with a crime, denies allegations it works for Hamas – even as it refuses to condemn the terrorist group by name.

“CAIR is not a front group for Hamas,” insisted CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper, “or any of the other false and misleading associations our detractors seek to smear us with.”

CAIR maintains it is simply a Muslim-rights group, but the Justice Department says it is a front group not only for Hamas, but for its parent the radical Muslim Brotherhood – a worldwide jihadist movement that prosecutors say has a secret plan to impose Shariah law on the U.S.

“From its founding by Muslim Brotherhood leaders, CAIR conspired with other affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood to support terrorists,” said assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Kromberg in a separate court filing.

In 2007, U.S. prosecutors first named CAIR an unindicted co-conspirator in a criminal scheme led by the Holy Land Foundation to funnel more than $12 million to Hamas suicide bombers and their families. A jury in 2008 convicted the charity and its leaders on all 108 felony counts.

“CAIR has been identified by the government at trial as a participant in an ongoing and ultimately unlawful conspiracy to support a designated terrorist organization – a conspiracy from which CAIR never withdrew,” said assistant U.S. Attorney Jim Jacks, who recently won an award from Attorney General Eric Holder for convicting the Holy Land terrorists.

The Holy Land revelations prompted the FBI to sever ties with CAIR until it can demonstrate it is not a terror front.

“Until we can resolve whether there continues to be a connection between CAIR or its executives and Hamas, the FBI does not view CAIR as an appropriate liaison partner,” advised assistant FBI Director Richard Powers in a 2009 letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Media outlets – including Fox News, which is financed by the same Saudi prince funding CAIR – continue to invite Awad and other CAIR leaders on the air to argue against airport profiling and other issues on CAIR’s agenda. Fox has offered CAIR guests full segments unopposed by critics and without viewer caveats regarding CAIR’s court-documented terror connections.

Posted By GlobalMB On November 18, 2009 @ 2:05 pm In Daily | No Comments

Five U.S. Congressmen have sent a letter to the Commission of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) requesting that the agency investigate the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) for possible violations of its non-profit status. The letter[1] states:

It has come to our attention that the Council on American ISlamic Relations (CAIR) may be in violation of both the anti-excessive lobbying provision of its 501c3 non-profit status and of the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 by its failure to register with the Congress as a federal lobbying organization.

The letter goes on to detail the basis for the request for such an investigation. Four of the Congressmen, all House Republicans, earlier accused CAIR of trying to plant spies on Capitol Hill in the form of Muslim interns. The four were joined in this letter by Senator Tom Coburn (R-O.K.)

Documents[2] released in the Holy Land Trial have revealed that the founders and current leaders of CAIR were part of the Palestine Committee of the Muslim Brotherhood as well as identifying the organization itself as being part of the U.S. Brotherhood. A recent post[3] discussed an interview with the Deputy leader of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in which he confirms a relationship between his organization and CAIR. Investigative research[4] posted on GMBDR had determined that CAIR had it origins in the U.S. Hamas infrastructure and CAIR and it leaders have a long history of defending almost all individuals accused of terrorism by the U.S. government, frequently calling such prosecutions a “war on Islam.” As discussed in previous posts[5], It appears that the FBI has recently ended its long-standing relationship with CAIR.

Posted By GlobalMB On August 17, 2007 @ 8:37 pm In Daily | No Comments

In a sign of the enormous importance placed on the issue, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) has filed an amicus brief[1] asking the court to remove CAIR and several hundred other Muslim individuals and institutions from a list of unindicted co-conspirators filed by the Justice department in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing case. The legal basis for the request was summarized as:

The Fifth Amendment was violated because the public naming of the unindicted co-conspirators damaged their reputation, good name, and economic well-being, without offering a forum for vindication, and without a legitimate governmental reason for doing so. The First Amendment was violated because the governmental action of publicly naming the unindicted co-conspirators chilled the expressive associational activities of the unindicted co-conspirators and the government does not have a substantially related compelling interest for their action.

The brief spends a great deal of time identifying the various harms that CAIR says it has suffered as a result of being named. First, the organization says that it has been the subject of “inflammatory media reports, singling out “weblogging pundits” and “right-wing internet groups” but also mentioning that mainstream media has reported on the naming. Second, CAIR says that it has suffered both a decline in membership and donations as well as having been the recipient of hate mail and death threats, all of which having impaired their ability to function. Finally, CAIR says that the action has ” severely damaged the reputation, good name, and dignity of these uncharged individuals and organizations” as well as causing them economic damage such as preventing future employment opportunities and impacting immigration and travel rights. Also mentioned was the potential for “violence from certain segments of the American public.”

The brief sums up the aggregate impact of the naming, perhaps accurately, as follows:

Furthermore, though, the public ‘outing’ of CAIR as an unindicted co-conspirator fundamentally undercuts their central mission to protect Muslim-Americans’ civil rights and foster an atmosphere of acceptance of Muslims in American society. Any message that CAIR tries to deliver to the American public, will be undercut by the insinuation that they are a criminal terrorist organization. The American public and the media which CAIR uses to deliver its message will no longer believe in the veracity of such message because CAIR will be perceived as a terrorist front organization.

The brief is the clearest indication to date that CAIR, and perhaps the other U.S. Muslim Brotherhood groups and individuals named by the Justice Department, have suffered serious damage as a result of the action by the Justice Department.